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Academy Award-winning sound designer Resul Pookutty talks about earning a nomination at MPSE Golden Reel Awards, working on Pushpa 2 and more.

Resul Pookutty talks about The Goat Life and Pushpa 2.
Academy Award-winning sound designer Resul Pookutty has earned a nomination at the 72nd Annual Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) Golden Reel Awards. He is nominated in the Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Feature International category for his exceptional work on the Malayalam film Aadujeevitham (The Goat Life), directed by Blessy and featuring Prithviraj Sukumaran in the lead role. Resul, who previously won the Golden Reel Award in 2016 for Best Sound for the documentary India’s Daughter, has once again brought Indian cinema into the global spotlight. In an exclusive interaction with News18 Showsha following the announcement, Resul shared his thoughts on the feat, opened up on collaborating with AR Rahman and the making of Pushpa 2.
Opening up on being nominated, he said, “I have not won in the feature film category yet. So, every time I get a nomination, I get jitters. For us, people working within the industry, especially in the sound fraternity, this is bigger than the Oscars. This is judged solely by the sound design community, by the peers within the fraternity. The nomination itself feels like a win.”
The ace sound designer also opened up on the success Pushpa 2, his latest project. Sharing the challenges the team faced during the production of the film, he said, “With Pushpa, we were racing against time. You know, we took almost a year and a half to shoot the film. Editing and sound and all. And there were a lot of edit changes coming in, and we were trying to pace up with that.”
Talking about the intense effort involved, he added, “We had three composers composing and choosing between musics. So, though the sound created a lot of impact in terms of sound design, I was very clear as to what to do and how to do. I had the team working with me, but we were all racing to finish.”
Pookutty also noted the massive scale of the film’s release. He said, “The number of prints that we needed to take out, the number of languages that we needed to come out in, and the number of formats that were needed… there was 3D, there was IMAX. So it was a tremendous task.”
Noting that budget was never a constraint with either of Pushpa or The Goat Life, he added, “I never had a budget of restriction. The number of days that I wanted to work, I got. The kind of people I wanted to work with, I got. I got an entire gamut of people from Hollywood, like the first line of people from Hollywood to work with me in Pushpa.”
The Oscar-winning sound designer, who has worked with AR Rahman on many iconic projects, also talked about their creative collaborations. Their first major collaboration was Slumdog Millionaire, which won an Oscar for its music and sound. They also recently worked together on Aadujeevitham (The Goat Life). He described their partnership as something truly unique. Wrapping up, he said, “It is a great synergy between us. I can’t explain this. I’ve never felt that with any other composer.”